DJ Asma took the stage for a couple of joints before bringing out a makeup-less M.I.A., dressed in a green safari hat and a black Middle Eastern getup straight out of the first "Mummy" movie, for /\/\/\Y/\ opener "The Message."

From there the British singer/rapper launched into gems from her first two albums, Kala and Arular, with the crowd leaping on top of itself for "Galang" and bass-heavy "Bamboo Banga."

She then removed her black top to reveal a T-shirt that said, "F--- Google. Ask Me!"

Although there were some sound issues in the beginning of the set -- at one point, M.I.A. took it upon herself to turn the speakers on the stage to face the audience -- the crowd didn't seem perturbed in the least.

As she strode in to hit "Boyz," M.I.A. stripped down to what would be her outfit for the remainder of the night: a white satin top with matching boy shorts. Chanting "Oy, oy!" and "New York!" the crowd met her with equal fervor for new album joints, "Lovalot" and "Story to Be Told," which had her switching between a sort of Bharatanatyam snake dance and a writhing punk twist.

For "Born Free," M.I.A. launched herself into the crowd and surfed above her fans. After throwing her mic to the audience so they could join in, they threw it back. "There's a dent in this!" she noted. "See, this is what YOU can do!"

A mesmerizing feature of the show was the kinetic movement of dancers Cisko and the awesome White Boi, who were both at M.I.A.'s side throughout the show.

She returned for her encore swigging from a bottle of Patron before singing "Teqkilla" and received an electric reception for her blowout finale, "Paper Planes," which saw her entire entourage and a few audience members joining her onstage. [mauldin brand agency]

Meanwhile, M.I.A.'s Terminal 5 show happening tonight (9/27) is starting late due to electrical problems. M.I.A. is tweeting about that too. So far we got: "SUP WIT NYC+ME, EDISON POWER SAYZ THE BUILDING CAN SHORT CIRCUT IN THE RAIN! POWRCUT AT VENU/NO SOUNDCHECK/ GENORATOR JUS BLEW 2ND COMIN IN" and "ON THE BUS waiting for city to tell me the status of their power !" and "MIA COMIN BACK WIT POWA POWA /\/\/\y/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\\\\\\///". I think the last one, which is the most recent one, means that things are looking up.

Due to unforeseen electrical issues in the neighborhood in and around Terminal 5 the show schedule is currently pushed back approximately 90 minutes. We anticipate opening doors by 8:30pm and hopefully no later than 9pm. We ask that you arrive at the venue closer to 9pm or later so you don't have to stand out in the rain. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing you all a little later at the Terminal!

I wouldn't worry too much about still having your Hard Fest ticket though (she said to keep them to get in to the free show), because Brooklyn Bowl holds signifigantly less people than Governors Island, so I'm guessing there will be a new system to get in. I'm also assuming the Brooklyn Bowl show will happen before M.I.A.'s mother gets in the country. Stay tuned for the date announcement (or keep checking your emailz).

Oh, and M.I.A. is on tour NOW. The Terminal 5 show is Monday. Tickets are still available.

On Tuesday I wrote that M.I.A.announced a tour with zero mention of her promised HARD NYC make-up show. Nobody would have asked for a make-up show, but back in July (right after the Governors Island show), she tweeted that she was going to play one. I realize she was probably just caught up in the moment (and by moment I mean the bad reviews), but she said it, publicly, and so people aren't going to forget. That includes the above-pictured Twitter users who M.I.A. just responded to (her replies are also pictured)...

M.I.A. has announced a new tour, and not suprisingly there's no mention of a free show. Oh well. There is a new NYC show though, and it happens September 27th at Terminal 5. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon ($35.00 advance / $40.00 day of show).

"The [Saturday night Governors Island HARD FEST] set started with "Steppin Up," with M.I.A. backed by about a dozen power drills as part of the rhythm track: noise triumphant. But M.I.A.'s vocals were often so buried in echo, and the bass so bloated, that her lyrics just became more of the din, and the songs that she segued together like a disc-jockey set were barely distinguishable. Instead of a barrage, it was a morass.

Her set was cut short by thunder and lightning, which she attributed to God and answered with a last defiant gesture: rapping "Born Free," which vows to speak her mind, a cappella as her backup group shut down. But an exodus from her set had begun well before the downpour." [NY Times]

I was there and I have to agree about the sound. M.I.A. agrees too, and not surprisingly, has taken to Twitter to deal with the accusations, and the rain. About the sound she wrote, "money doesnt buy u shit! i thought more money means better sound guys in america/\/\/\! i was wrong, the higher u go , they turn u lower!", and "fuck technology! even the stage broke + parts of it fell off in the storm". And about the rain, well, check out the Twitter screenshot above! Don't have a Hard Fest ticket? Don't worry because Maya also promises that "if u do me a lil dance , ill let u in too!" We'll make sure to keep you posted when and if more details emerge.

"Hard provided a music experience for those New Yorkers who love to rave, get down and dirty with thousands of strangers and weren't afraid to show some skin. (Looks like some attendees took notes from our Summer Music Fest trend report!)

Also, depending on how much you felt like raging, you could choose the "Hard" stage or "Harder" stage. (Which to me, is almost as character defining as choosing between "fire" and "ice" on the Dueling Dragons ride at Universal Studios.) Guests who didn't want to be bothered with making such a life-altering decision set up camp where ever and proceeded with their very own impromptu dance party.

The culmination of the evening came with M.I.A.'s much anticipated performance. Unfortunately, she wasn't properly miked, her voice was drowned out by her mashed up beats, and the only time she was heard was when she was yelling at the sound team...Thankfully mother nature was on her side, and it began to downpour, cutting her set short. At the end of the day the only press she received was spitting in a photographer's face, but all wasn't lost! She brought the noise, and really, isn't that what music festivals are all about?" [Guest of a Guest]

Saturday's NYC HARD FEST on Governors Island wasn't all just M.I.A., Die Antwoord and Sleigh Bells (and more Die Antwoord), it was a 2-stage extravaganza that fit up to 15,000 concert-goers (not sure how many tickets actually sold, but it was far from empty looking) in a large field just a short ferry ride away from South Street Seaport (Pier 11 actually). Destructo, Ninjasonik, Rye Rye, and Theophilus London were also among those on the bill. More pictures from those sets (and the big three), below....

"the show last night [ridiculous] and awesome and bad, and magic--mia [sucked] so bad, she must must have done [it] on purpose. she's got some tricks and some ideas, but [I] think she just got so cagey when die anterwoord blew her out of the water that she pulled this weird ass rockstar theatrics and sabotaged herself and the sound system, along with throwing a big fuck you to the crowd that actually came to see her. [I] mean at some point before she went on, they cut the Dj off and there was this whole sound from the backstage VIP area, and the crowd got [to] listen to it for a few minutes in silence, and it was like "that's were the party is at, suckers". I don't know if she drinks or not, but the bit about having a shot of [tequila] in her seemed by far the realest part of the night. The best was the rain over the lazers, but she didn't even know how to make that to work for her, so it seemed like Nature taking pity on her." [Anonymous]

This post contains Alexander's pictures of the final three main-stage acts (M.I.A. who spit down on Alexander while Alex captured the saliva on film, Die Antwoord who made at least one female member of the ecstasy-filled crowd go wild, and Sleigh Bells who also sounded great), and two videos (topless girl and lasers/rain), below...

"Heat can be very dangerous. A few years ago in Chicago, 700 people died during a heat wave over a course of a week, so you just got to be careful," said Bloomberg. "None of us think it's going happen to us, but as we all get a little bit older, you just have to take a little more care."

The risk of getting sick during a heat wave is increased for people who:
• Are younger than five, or older than 64.
• Have chronic medical or mental health conditions.
• Take medications, which can disrupt the regulation of body temperature.
• Are confined to their beds or unable to leave their homes.
• Are overweight.

Meanwhile, 200 cooling centers will open on Saturday throughout the five boroughs. To find the cooling center closest to you, call 311 or visit www.nyc.gov/oem. A complete guide to dealing with extreme heat can be found at www.nyc.gov/oem. [NY1]

The above-pictured Pavement show took place in May 2010 (and wasn't free). In September, Pavement will play Virgin Mobile FreeFest (and it is free)....

"Breaking from traditional festivals, the Virgin Mobile FreeFest presented by Kyocera unveiled its lineup for the award-winning festival, selecting relevant, important, and eclectic headliners to represent this year's free show. This morning, Chairman of the Virgin Group Sir Richard Branson announced the lineup on Virgin Mobile Live, the company's new Internet music stream available on Virgin Mobile websites.

Virgin Mobile FreeFest will be held Saturday, September 25 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. Tickets to the 2010 Virgin Mobile FreeFest will be available to the public on www.ticketfly.com at 10 am EST on Saturday, July 24th.

Not bad for a free show (and yet another Pavement show!). More details, with the full set of pictures of Pavement playing this year's Sasquatch Fest, below...

"This M.I.A. album is unforgivable. Y'all put her on the cover of your magazines before actually hearing this thing, right?" - Chris Weingarten

"every1 who came 2nite to PS1 TO REP the LP Release party THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU! !!!!!! i dint get to say it coz the cop turn my sound off!.." - _M_I_A_

M.I.A. @ The Creators Project in June

"The record is a shambling mess, devoid of the bangers that characterized Arular and Kala, two of the stronger pop albums of the past decade. It aims to capture a technological and cultural zeitgeist in its over-stimulated, digitally degraded sound, but the songs are too flimsy to carry her bold conceit. Without compelling tunes, the obnoxious public antics, dubious political messages, and thin voice that had grated on her naysayers have become impossible for even dedicated fans to ignore. It's as if everything that was great about M.I.A. has been stripped from this music, leaving behind only the most alienating aspects of her art and public persona." [Pitchfork (Matthew Perpetua) gave / \ / \ / \ Y / \ a 4.4]

M.I.A.'s last NYC show was at PS1 last night, Sunday, July 11th, sort of. As previously mentioned, she was only scheduled to play a very short set, and as you can see by her tweet above, that set was cut even shorter (by actors pretending to be cops. just kidding! well, you never know).

The show spaces were predictably cozy and cramped, and USA lost their World Cup match again Ghana, but besides those qualms, not many bad things can be said about the Vice/Intel Creators Project event on Saturday (6/26). Interpolplayed their first hometown set since unveiling their new lineup earlier in the week, and M.I.A., the night's secret guest, put on a singularly ridiculous, entertaining show, albeit in the crowded, low-ceilinged second floor space. Even the un-affiliated soccer game screened amicably on a huge projector before the music started. If there was one caveat, it was that not that many people, relatively, got in to enjoy the art and music presented. Then again, that's one reason the labyrinthine network of art installations and stages was so surprisingly bearable and easy to navigate.

The same second floor stage that filled up for M.I.A. was also packed to capacity for Sleigh Bells. How much you enjoyed either's set depended a great deal on where you stood (and how early you got there). Cramped in the back, Sleigh Bells sounded pitchy and uneven - but jostled up in the front, the spectacle and body-shaking bass of Die Antwoord were entirely enjoyable. It also depended on your affinity for personal space, which was in short supply anywhere with a decent view of the stage.

And a view was pretty essential to enjoying the antics of the Antwoord crew and M.I.A.'s coterie of stage guests. Mia opened with caustic punk song "Born Free" (video below) a loud if not exactly melodious entrance choice. The stage-show continued the flashy political baiting of the "Born Free" video, which played behind the song. M.I.A. donned pot leaf goggles, rainbow hair and a hooded camo jacket, with a band who alternately wore glow-stick lined clothes and MIA-logoed burkas. Others on stage included a pair of dancers (one ginger-haired), Sleigh Bell's Alexis and Derek, and Ninjasonik. More new songs came, as did "World Town" and crowd-pleasing closer "Paper Planes."

Three of the night's other bands - The Rapture, Gang Gang Dance and Interpol - set up on the first floor studio's back loading dock, which was open to 14th street and the adjacent High Line Park. Gang Gang Dance sounded dependably sturdy in the cavernous garage. Interpol played an 11-song set with four new songs (including the slow-building "Lights") - tight and together, and ready for bigger arenas. The stage was open on three sides, so even without a spot in the front of the stage you didn't get locked out.

I didn't see much on the first floor lounge - Salem took a while to set up and I skipped them to catch Interpol. Neon Indian played the downstairs too, where DJs spun throughout the day. The eighth floor of the building was also part of the show (as was the penthouse/roof VIP-area above it). On eight, there was a screening room where Spike Jonze's I'm Here, a surrealist robot drama, played among other things, as well as installations like Nick Zinner's gothy, minimal photo and ambient-score room.

After M.I.A. I went to downstairs to find Mark Ronson DJing in the first floor gallery. MNDR was on stage with him singing her song "Fade to Black". She also reportedly performed Ronson's new single "Bang Bang Bang" before I got there. NME also says...

"Phantom Planet's Alex Greenwald [sang] the Ronson-tweaked version of Radiohead's 'Just' while executing an impressive crowd-surf.

Ex-[Pipettes] singer Rose Elinor Dougall took to the stage for two new 'Record Collection' tracks, 'Hey Boy' and 'You Gave Me Nothing' - the latter a song co-written by Jonathan Pierce of The Drums. Ronson ended the night with the first public airing of 'Somebody To Love Me', which features vocals from Boy George.

The rest of Ronson's set that I saw, before the end, was mostly soul and early '00s hip-hop (Pharell, Snoop, Stevie, Jay-Z). Upstairs, MIA was still on the stereo, with NASA mixing the verses of "Bombs over Baghdad" over her song "Boyz." Much of the remaining audience was on stage partying with two arthropod-looking creatures. Back downstairs, some diehards were still dancing - the bar was still stocked, and Mark Ronson behind the decks didn't give much reason to leave.

Saturday's event will be streaming online. That includes the performances by Sleigh Bells, Die Antwoord and the secret guest, who, if you didn't figure it out already, is M.I.A.. UPDATE: the event will be streaming, but not the performances, just the exhibits.

Dom, pictured above playing at a party inside Pitchfork's Brooklyn offices on Tuesday night, are in town to play two Northside Festival shows. The first happens tonight, Thursday, June 24th, at the Knitting Factory. Dom opens for Cloud Nothings and WAVVES. That show is sold out. After that it's Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg aka the BrooklynVegan showcase with Zaza, Twin Sister, and Memory Tapes. That one still has tickets available. Both shows are also accessible with a Northside Festival badge (first come, first served, capacity permitting, etc).

It's been an exciting few months for Dom whose next scheduled NYC show after Northside is the 2010 Siren Festival. Their most recent show before Northside was "Fader Bowl".

Billy Jones (you may have read his recent interview with Dave Sitek) caught up with Dom (the person) via gchat on Wednesday. They talked about Dom (the group), the Pitchfork party, Cults, gingers (they both are), Total Slacker, salvia, Party Expo, merch and more...

---

Billy: sup manDom: nothing much. chillin.

Billy: i am gingerDom: sick! u kno we are less than 10 percent population

The cover article in The Times Magazine on Sunday profiled the singer and political activist M.I.A. While discussing her efforts to draw attention to the civil war in her home country, Sri Lanka, she was quoted as saying: "I wasn't trying to be like Bono. He's not from Africa -- I'm from there. I'm tired of pop stars who say, 'Give peace a chance.' I'd rather say, 'Give war a chance.' The whole point of going to the Grammys was to say, 'Hey, 50,000 people are gonna die next month, and here's your opportunity to help.' And no one did."

While M.I.A. did make those remarks, she did not make the entire statement at the same point in the interview, or in the order in which it was presented.

The part that begins, "The whole point of going to the Grammys," up to the end of the quotation, actually came first. The part that begins, "I wasn't trying to be like Bono," and ends, "Give war a chance," came later in the same interview. The article should have made clear that the two quotations came from different parts of the interview. [NY Times] (via)

The most combustive song on M.I.A.'s third album isn't loud or chaotic. Built on a mildly ominous, off-kilter beat -- plus an incessant shoosh like a bag of coins being shaken -- it bloops along with the grace of a janky PopCap game. But the sneakily titled "Lovealot" is perhaps the riskiest gambit yet from the 32-year-old artist born Maya Arulpragasam.

"Lovealot" alludes in part to the iconic, viral photo of a pistol-wielding Russian/Islamic couple -- the husband, a terrorist leader killed last year by police, and the wife, a teenager who tried to avenge his death by suicide-bombing the Moscow subway (at one point the song was titled "A/bdurakh/man/ova," after the girl's surname). Merely 20 seconds in, M.I.A. spits, suddenly, "Like a Taliban trucker eatin' boiled-up yucca / Get my eyes done like I'm in the burka," and then, "Like a hand-me-down sucker throwin' bombs out at Mecca," and on and on. What's more, when she purrs the line, "I really love a lot," she stretches the last two words so they sound like "I really love Allah." [Spin's review of 'Maya']

That's the album art for "/\/\/\Y/\" (aka Maya), M.I.A's third album, due July 13th. Singles "XXXO" and "Born Free" from the album are already out and available on iTunes.

For the past week or so, as you probably heard, M.I.A., like Courtney Love before her, has been "feuding" with NYTimes' writer Lynn Hirschberg (a "ginger") over a not-so-favorable but not-SO-bad-either profile (cover story) on the singer in the NYT Sunday Magazine (a key part of which aims, successfully or not, at M.I.A.'s "terrorist" cred/claims). It all started when M.I.A. tweeted Lynn's phone number after the article was posted on NYTimes.com. The most recent development is a song (above) posted on the NEET Records blog, accompanied by unedited parts of the interview (part of which concerns truffle fries) (how M.I.A. got audio of her own interview is unclear).

"FOR decades, the upfront week in mid-May -- devoted to previewing the coming television season for advertisers -- was reserved for the big broadcast networks. Recently, however, the cable channels, emboldened by gains in ratings and advertising revenue, started sneaking onto the schedule.... Among the other events planned this week by cable channels are a party with a "Jersey Shore" theme, from MTV, part of the MTV Networks unit of Viacom; a party sponsored by the Adult Swim programming block on Cartoon Network, part of the Turner Entertainment Networks unit of Time Warner; and presentations by two Turner channels, TBS and TNT." [NY Times]

The Adult Swim party took place Wednesday night at Gotham Hall, and as you can see above, they got a performance by M.I.A., though according to party attendant J-Rod, "Gotham Hall as a venue is fun to be in, but the acoustics stink. Can't hear M.I.A.'s vocals at all. Looks dope, tho."

"The Austin City Limits Music Festival began as a modest, two-day event and now, as it enters it's 9th year, has become a perennial American music experience. Taking place at the heart of Austin, Texas in the legendary Zilker Park, ACL Festival has grown to 3 days, 8 stages and over 130 bands."

As if the hype wasn't through the roof enough, M.I.A. helped popularize the act her label co-signed (is that the right term?) a little bit more this evening by joining Sleigh Bells on stage at the end of their show at Coco66. The show's promoter Seva Granik writes, "MIA closes Sleigh Bells' set on "Ring Ring." Crowd go nut. Ima get another drank."

In unrelated news, David Byrne was seen checking out Local Natives cover a Talking Heads song at Bowery Ballroom earlier the same night, and Emily Haines joined Broken Social Scene for three songs at Webster Hall. More on those later.

"Damn, I love Die Antwoord. It's like we've taken all the Disney Princesses at Stereotypes R Us, pulled off their wigs, forced their little legs together, and rammed them down the throats of the American purveyors of pop culture dreck, the soulless marketers who make millions every year by selling ersatz imperial myths to the rest of the world.

Okay, perhaps Die Antwoord aren't achieving quite that level of utter cultural domination, but allow me our little victories. The sight of Americans taking Yo-Landi and Ninja seriously is so delicious, I can almost forgive some of the excesses of the music. There's a 20 minute interview with Die Antwoord on Boing Boing, around their debut at the Coachella music festival in California, and it's a marvellous exercise in satire." [CHRIS ROPER | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA]